Does audio also come in over the USB connection or do you have to use the optical audio out from the device? Is the audio from the USB Dolby 5.1?

Does audio also come in over the USB connection or do you have to use the optical audio out from the device? Is the audio from the USB Dolby 5.1?

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* Audio and video are passed via USB. If you use the optical in and the signal is 5.1, so will the resulting file. [[User:Iamlindoro|Iamlindoro]] 16:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Revision as of 16:34, 22 January 2010

Are there seriously countermeasures being deployed this early in the game? Jeez, I'm used to at least a half-year of lag-time... Do you have any news reports or links to people complaining about this? How widespread is it?

There are numerous users in the IRC channel who have been running into this for a while and have first-hand experience with their component being disabled. They're not specifically targeting the HD-PVR, but rather trying to proactively close the analog hole. Sky has begun to do so, and Freesat is updating firmware across six manufacturers to enable the UK equivalent of the broadcast flag which will allow per-program disabling of the component outputs.

Contents

Additional information about component output disabling in US

I've revised the section about component disabling. In the US, I don't think it is the case that cable and satellite providers are lobbying legislators. Rather the MPAA is lobbying the FCC to allow component output to be selectively disable for specific presentations. Of course the fear is that this is just a foot in the door to disable unencrypted outputs for everything, all the time. For now, however, that is not the case, and it isn't even certain that the FCC will allow it.
Here's more information from Ars Technica, who spoke to representatives from the MPAA:

Also, is there a better reference that the one linked regarding UK providers? Aside from being difficult to read, and generally unprofessional, it is unclear who writes the blog and what the authors' interests represent regarding this issue. For example, near the end the author states:
"Buyers should not be influenced by the loss of the component connection as we feel this should already have been implemented on the component connection and it does not take away from the more than capable Humax Foxsat set top box."

One of the early articles on the blog explains that it is published by "Domain Holdings", one of the "biggest Internet publishers in Europe."

Digital Component (YCbCr) isn't what you think it is. YCbCr is the one of two color schemes employed by HDMI (the other being RGB) in transmission. There is no such thing as three-wire digital component. This is to say, if the HD-PVR were a YCbCr capture device, it would be an HDMI capture device. It's not. Rather, the HD-PVR captures standard component signals, or YPbPr. The article (and the many many publicly available sources of information) clearly specifies that the HD-PVR is an analog capture device. When you say that a TV has Component Video inputs, there's no more need to specify them as analog inputs that you need to call your car a "gas auto."

Put as simply as possible, if the HD-PVR were a "Digital Component capture device," we would just call it an "HDMI Capture Device." Which it's not. It's a component video capture device. According to the extremely common use of this term, it is a given that it is analog component video. When you go to the store and buy a set of component cables, they don't hand you an HDMI cable (unless you visit a really clueless store). To clarify, HMDI is a type of component because the color signals are broken out onto separate pins on the connection.

real life experiences

Does anyone have any real life experiences using this device with MythTV?

I would like some more details in the following areas:
- Stability (a serious problem with my current firewire capture setup)
- HD/SD image quality
- Mythfrontend hardware requirements for h.264 playback at HD resolutions

This is the first alternative for HD capture to the firewire method, and I am very interested in it, but cannot afford to gamble the purchase price on my own experimentation.

How is Audio Handled?

Does audio also come in over the USB connection or do you have to use the optical audio out from the device? Is the audio from the USB Dolby 5.1?

Audio and video are passed via USB. If you use the optical in and the signal is 5.1, so will the resulting file. Iamlindoro 16:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)